Five for Friday...WHAT, WHAT!?!

WOW!  It's been quite a long time since I've posted and I am so sorry for that!  I've missed sharing every Friday with all my internet teacher friends!  Life has thrown me for a loop and a new school year in a brand new school with a brand new teaching adventure ahead means I'm getting my groove back!  So stinking excited about all of it!

So, let's get this party started!

Lower Elementary Montessori!  WOW!  The beauty and amazingness of kiddos who have lived and learned together for at least 3 years but for some as many as 5 years...that's a really good thing!  I started this job just a few days before teachers reported to school and hit the ground running.  I met my kiddos on Monday and the only newbie to the group was me!  These kids rolled in and sized me up and over the last 5 days have tried a few tricks but overall, we are going to have a great year!  They are brilliant and funny and energetic and I am so glad to be on a new professional adventure!!

Five for Friday...YES to Friday!

Whew, it's been a long one but if you're reading this it means you made it to Friday!  GO YOU!!!  Why does the week back after winter break almost seem longer than the first week of school!?!  No worries, I'm all snuggled on the coach with a beverage and my fuzzy Star Wars pajama pants on because the bikini weather finally left SC and it's actually cold here!  So, without further ado, let's get Five for Friday under way!

 Flipped the page to January in my self made planner and this was what hit me in the face!  Great way to start the new year!  Now if I can just keep it in mind day in and out!

Back on track with regular runs and feeling really good!  My speed is increasing (when I least expect it...cuz I suck at pacing myself!) and I even am getting my distance back.  I am running the Walk for Life 10K in the morning and am pretty excited about it because it's my first race since surgery!  Wish me luck!

My peeps came for a late Christmas celebration!  We had good times and my sis & bro-in-law gave us this awesome game!  Sequence.  My BIL even made it which made it pretty fabulous!  Look it up! It is a super fun game!

And yes, that is a hammock hanging in the sun room!  The hubs thought that would be cool.  Two actually hang in there and the boys both have them in their bedrooms as well!

Shhh, I'm really glad that school is back!  I miss my babies when school is out!

These are my after school kiddos.

We missed our Dorothy girl a lot!

This ham bone even read to us his favorite smelly book!

It was a good, good week!

My small punk and I have started reading this together before bed.  It's one of my favorites and I have been begging him for a while now to let me read it to him.  He finally gave in and he loves it!  Its a great book about a 5th grade girl who has been labeled and she simply doesn't like it.  It's a great lesson for kids, a great reminder for teachers and a wonderful life story.

Stay tuned next week...or maybe during this coming week for some really fun Sight Word stuff I've been working on with my kiddos.  They love it and I think you will too!

Have a great week and relax a little this weekend!

Hop back to Doodle Bugs Teaching to check out other posts.

Five for Friday....on a Friday! For Reals!

WOOOHOOO for Friday!  This will indeed be a  Friday post as I am laid up on the couch healing from knee surgery!  So, here goes!

If you follow me on Instagram then you know, I'm a runner!  And sometimes runners have knee trouble and sometimes runners have to have surgery...so that they can run again! :)

Two little bitty incisions and an autograph from my dr.!  All fixes to non-loadbearing portions of my knee.  Meniscus repair and something about my femur and shaving bone or some such something.  I have almost no pain, a lot of nausea as the anesthesia wears off and this is my view until Monday.

One of my favorite Montessori lessons!  Sentence strips with phrases and objects.  The kiddos love it!  This 4 year old...just turned 5 insisted that she doesn't know how to read!  Oh yeah!?!

Oh my mercy.  This is happening!  That little white car behind me is my new driver big punk!  He followed me home in his new to him car.  EEEEEEKKKK!  Good news is that he drives like grandma so I'm only worried about all the other crazies on the road!

This sweet baby worked so hard on this awesome freebie.  He is a 4 year old in my room and has great number sense and this was the perfect extension to some Montessori work he has been doing.  I caught him in the act of working on the paper and after finishing 3 problems he came over and wiped is brow and said, "whew, I worked really hard and I am really tired!"  The beauty of Montessori is that I was able to respond with, "Awesome, put it in your cubby and you can finish it tomorrow!" 

Grab this great freebie here...

and then there is this...

I live right there in the the middle.  Columbia, SC isn't really prepared for 6-14 inches of rain in 3 days time.  Businesses and schools in our downtown area are preparing for the worst and we are in a state of emergency.  It's all that we are talking about in SC.  Say a little prayer for us over the next few days!  I guess it's a great weekend to be laid up on the couch!

Have a fabulous weekend and stay tuned for my AWESOME Super Hero Sight Word Booklet that I will be posting this weekend!

Hop back over to Doodle Bugs Teaching and see what other teacher friends are doing in their classrooms!

#TEACHERWEEK2015...My Sanity!

I know, I'm out of order but such is life...I'm not a great rule follower and I didn't have this post all together yesterday...but I do now so ENJOY!

Sanity is such a precious commodity for teachers and it is definitely one that I am often missing!  I race along at a pretty crazy pace and if I'd cut out one or two or ten things I'd probably immediately regain quite a bit of sanity but that doesn't seem likely because i am pretty darned happy with my life as is so I am always looking for ways to organize the insanity. 

Running is my go to sanity saver!  When I am tired, mad, hungry, have a headache, have too much to do, need to think, need a minute alone, pretty much any time...I run!  I always feel so energized and ready to conquer the world when I finish a run. 

Any kind of exercise will do the trick.  Get your blood pumping, your heart rate up and sweat a little and your sanity will thank you!

And then of course there is this.  

You would think with all of my wine posts I am an all out alcoholic but I promise I am not.  I like a glass of red wine on a pretty regular basis but more than a glass gives me a killer headache because I am the queen of cute wine labels which usually equals cheap wine in the bottle!  My current fav is Rex Goliath Cabernet Sauvignon.  Love that stuff!

And then for me there are my girlz!  I am very fortunate because I have not one but two group of amazing women in my life that keep me sane and smiling and loving life!  The first is a group that I have been hanging with for about 6 years now.  They are my TT Crew.  We dubbed ourselves TT because we get together every other Tuesday night for dinner.  I am home early enough to do prayers and Twinkle, Twinkle with my punks but we spend 2 hours eating, drinking and gabbing.  The collective hubs know it's better not to touch TT and with little interruption it happens every other Tuesday night.

Four of us originally came together  because of PTO and we added more as the years moved on.  We have lost a few members because of moving and life changes but when I think of my girls and who I can count on when things get bad or when joys need to be shared or when every shred of sanity is gone...these are my homies!

And in the last year i have gotten to know these fabulous chicks!

What an amazing group of Godly women!  We came together a year ago when I led a ladies summer Bible Study at my fabulous church Seacoast and we have sorta been attached at the 2nd row every Sunday since then!  I can share stories and secrets and we learn and grow in the Word together.  Biggest thing with these ladies is that I can give them anything to pray about and I know they will do it like bosses!  (PS, I can't stand this picture of me...I look like I am about twice my normal size but I love the pic of us so it will have to do!)

Girl friends are sanity savers!  I didn't always know this and actually didn't make time for chick relationships until the last few years.  Now I don't know what I would do without them!

Which brings me to my final and most important sanity saver!  Time with God!  I try to start each day with a devotional and I spend pretty much all day every day praying.  It's just a thing of mine.  I pray for my kids in my classroom, I pray for my team at school, I pray for my hubs and his business, I pray for my attitude and lately I have been praying for JOY!  I seem to be lacking in that department recently so I am starting every day with what I am thankful for and asking God to give me joy throughout the day!  I am signed up with Girlfriends in God and get an email from them daily that I read to start my day.  Check it out!

So, those are my sanity savers!  Can't wait to hear yours!

3-2-1 Teacher Bio!

I keep seeing these fun link ups about different topics that we teacher folk have time to talk about during the summer so I thought I'd finally jump in on one from Lucky to be in First!

I know it sounds corny but I have done so many things in education and I always come back to the classroom.  It's home to me and it's where I will stay!

And, a little bit about regular me...

1. I've always been active but in my adult life I haven't been really involved in sports of any kind.  When I owned my scrapbook store (yes, another unknown fact about me) I had a customer who became a great friend call one day and ask me to join her mud run team.  One of their people had backed out so I said sure!  I was hooked and started doing races.  I started with 5ks and just kept inching up in mileage.  In January of 2013 I ran the Goofy.  Goofy was putting it nicely.  Its a race put on by Disney World.  You run a 1/2 Marathon (13.1 miles) on Saturday and a full marathon (26.2 miles) on Sunday.  I trained for 6 months and I did it.  It was tougher than childbirth but I did it.  7 weeks later i decided to do a local marathon because I felt like I still had it in my legs. It was tied to a kids marathon that my class had been working on all year long.  They race coordinators let my kiddos wait at mile 25 for me and we did the last mile together.  That was the last marathon I will ever do!  PURE TORTURE!

I am just getting to the point now were I love running again.  Training for a marathon takes the fun out of running and I didn't run much in 2014 because it just didn't seem fun anymore.

2. Yes, I am an animal freak!  The chickens are my latest favorite!  They came from my classroom after we incubated eggs last year! Can't beat fresh eggs on a daily basis! :) 

Now it's your turn!  Grab the buttons below, link up and tell us all about you!

 

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